


Dust in the Wind

by premeditated



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: (kind of), Angst, Everybody Lives, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 21:13:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14481300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/premeditated/pseuds/premeditated
Summary: *INFINITY WAR SPOILERS*He was supposed to be dead.He remembered every moment of fading away, exactly how it felt to know that he was about to die. He wasn't supposed to exist anymore, but that's not quite how it happens.





	Dust in the Wind

**Author's Note:**

> hey ha ha how about that movie, huh??? i'm actually pretty sure my heart crawled out through my throat and died on the floor of the movie theater, trampled underfoot. i know the people thanos obliterated aren't permadead and that things will work out in 2019 (2019!!!!!).... but probably not at all like this. UNLESS I'M RIGHT AND THEY'RE ALL NOT DEAD BUT ACTUALLY JUST SUCKED INTO THE SOUL STONE LOL. i needed some immediate good feelings, though, so here we are. i was going to make my debut into spider-man fanfiction much more planned out than this (and much more comic-focused) but i feel like this big mess of emotional stuff is more accurate to who i am as a person.
> 
> i actually had to write a lot of characters i'm not really super familiar with, so bear with me. it's just supposed to help all of us feel a little better! if anyone wants to talk conspiracy theories about how they're going to fix this and how dr. strange totally has a plan, hmu

There was no dignity in dying.

Peter was no stranger to death, even before he became Spider-Man. He knew how important every second of every life was, how it needed to be cherished and lived fully so that when the time finally came, he would have no regrets. He would be ready.

But now the time was right here, staring him in the face, and he was just afraid.

He wanted to live. He had always wanted to live. There was no room inside of him for anything else right then—nothing meaningful, nothing important, nothing more significant than the act of sucking in another breath. There was no reason beyond that. He didn’t need one for the devastating need to endure at the end.

He staggered forward, clung to Tony with shaking hands. His eyes were terrified.

The first wisps of dust floated into the atmosphere as his fingers started to decay, and he knew the rest of his time could be measured in seconds. He was going to die. He was going to die. He rejected it with all his might.

“I don’t want to go,” he sobbed, “I don’t want to go.”

Tony held onto him, caught him when his knees finally buckled, and that almost made it better.

In his very last moments, he cried. He was scared, and he begged an indifferent universe for the right to stay, just to stay here, now. And still, all to ashes.

* * *

Tony stared at the empty spot in his arms where Peter had been moments before. He fell heavily to the ground but hardly noticed, too busy trying to get air into his lungs. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath. Maybe he was dying.

That thought caused a full-body flinch. He wasn’t dying. Somehow, he was still alive.

But Peter wasn’t. The kid had just died right in front of him, and the best Tony could do was hold him until he vanished. There was nothing he could _do_. He felt the hysteria washing over him, the numbing wave of pure panic that brought a haze over his thoughts, and he welcomed it. He stared at the settling dust motes and saw nothing.

But he couldn’t escape forever, even if his body insisted on shutting down. The first coherent thought he had was about his dream from that morning.

Him, a father. He and Pepper, with a child. God, he’d thought it was about Pepper.

Now his kid was gone, and Tony would be dreaming about the heartbreaking sobs he heard while a fifteen-year-old died in his arms until the end of time.

His second thought was much simpler: _I should’ve died._

He spent a long time trying to decide who else to be angry at. Eventually, he picked himself up off the dusty ground.

* * *

Peter was still crying. He was shaking and gasping, doubled over as the sobs wracked his whole body. He couldn’t think beyond the visceral white noise of his panic, his heart pounding away in his ribs as he struggled to breathe. For a while, he could do nothing but cry with his entire being.

He eventually started to calm down. The crushing fear began to recede, leaving in its place a lingering emptiness as his senses came back to him. He realized he’d fallen to the ground on his hands and knees and stared at the grass as he tried to take deep breaths. Someone was crouched beside him, rubbing soothing circles into his back, and after a while he realized they were murmuring to him in a low voice, too.

“It’s alright, kid, you’re alright now. Everything’s gonna be fine, just keep breathing in and out, in and out…”

“Mr. Stark?” he asked hoarsely.

“Yeah, no,” the voice said, “I’m not Tin Man. He didn’t actually make the jump with us.”

Peter could barely follow what those words meant and decided it would be better to just see who it was for himself. He pushed himself into a sitting position, trying to ignore the shakiness of his limbs as he pulled his scrambled thoughts together.

It was the guy from Titan, the blond one who had punched Thanos in the face. Peter blinked at him as a few stray tears leaked down his face.

“Welcome to the afterlife, Spider-Guy.” He’d taken his hand back from Peter’s shoulder so that he could do some very sincere jazz hands. “It’s actually just like being alive, but nothing happens and it lasts forever!”                                                                                                                         

“Oh, man,” Peter blurted out, “are we actually dead? It’s just, like, some field in the middle of nowhere? This is so _weird_. I’m still wearing the Iron Spider suit! And—and why are _you_ here?”

“Hey, I’ve done plenty of stuff in my long and action-packed life to get myself into Heaven!” the guy said indignantly. “I’m a Guardian of the Galaxy, and you’re, like, twelve, anyway!”

“No, it’s not that,” Peter started, ignoring most of what he’d just heard. He took a deep breath before starting again. “I just thought—I was kind of expecting someone else to greet me when I, you know, died.”

“Well, I’m sure they’re here somewhere, kid,” the guy reassured him with a clap on the shoulder. “You can go looking after we meet up with the others.”

“Others?” Peter echoed, perking up a bit. “Who else is here?”

“Uh, only half the _universe_. A lot of your pals, the Avengers—not including Iron Dad, though, for what it’s worth.”

Peter felt his heart drop in disappointment, then was immediately overcome with guilt. It would be better if no one he knew was here. Harder for him, maybe, but definitely much better.

“Alright,” he said, pushing himself onto his feet, “okay. Let’s go.”

“You sure you’re good, kid?” The guy held his hands out as if to steady him when he stumbled a bit. “We can take another second or two. Or six billion. Time’s not really a thing here.”

“No, I’m good, I’m good,” Peter promised.

He wasn’t good. He _so_ wasn’t good, but as long as he didn’t think too hard about being dead, or about everyone who _wasn’t_ dead, he’d be fine.

The guy shrugged easily and started guiding them toward the trees. “You don’t have to accept being dead right off the bat,” he said conversationally. “It’ll hit you eventually.”

If the building nausea and the unwarranted tingle of his Spider Sense was anything to go by, it was hitting him pretty hard already. But Peter resolutely ignored that and tried to get his thoughts back on track to a safer topic.

“Thanks for helping me with, um, all of that stuff back there,” he said, rubbing his neck in an embarrassed gesture. “I’m Peter, by the way.”

The man abruptly stopped walking and spun around to grab Peter by the shoulders. The only reason he didn’t topple over entirely was his uncanny spider reflexes, and even then, he had to wheel his arms a bit.

“That’s the coolest name in the universe,” they guy said, very seriously, staring him straight in the eyes.

Peter blinked a few times, but he didn’t say anything else. “Um… thanks? I’ve—I’ve always liked it, I guess—”

“ _Like_ it? You should love it!” he exclaimed. “Own it! It’s the best of the best, and I would know.”

He leaned in conspiratorially, holding his hand up to his mouth and saying in a truly obnoxious stage whisper, “My name is Peter, too.”

Peter gave a little wave. “Hey, Peter Two, I’m Peter One.”

The man—Peter—gave a bellowing laugh and a light punch to Peter’s shoulder. “Good one, brat. Last name’s Quill.”

Peter grinned, and it didn’t even feel forced. “Parker.”

Quill was shaking his head. “Damn, that’s a cool name.”

“Yours is pretty great, too,” Peter conceded.

“Still, it’s going to be kind of weird,” Quill continued, rubbing his chin in thought. “We can’t _both_ be Peter, that’ll just be too confusing.”

“You can just call me Spider-Man,” Peter suggested.

But Quill waved him off, still thinking. “No, no, that’s too easy. Plus, I kind of can’t take that name seriously now that I’ve seen your face.”

Peter frowned. “Hey, that’s—”

“I know!” Quill declared. He pointed at himself and Peter in turn. “You can call me Star-Lord, because I’m super cool and everyone calls me that anyway, and you’ll be Junior.”

Peter’s eyebrows scrunched together. “Um, shouldn’t one of us get to stay Peter?”

“Sorry, Junior,” Quill said breezily, “that’s not how the rules work. You have been dubbed thusly, and it is so.”

“But, um, it’s just that we’re not even really related or anything—”

Quill put his arm back around Peter’s shoulders as he led them along, shaking his head. “No, no, you’ve got it all wrong. We’ve got a bond, kid, that starts with our names, but it’s much cooler than that. We’re two of a kind here, Peter, peas in a pod, birds of a feather! Got it?”

“Okay,” Peter said, feeling himself start to smile again, “yeah, alright.”

They walked along for a few more minutes in a comfortable silence, punctuated every now and then with some upbeat chatter from Quill. Peter appreciated it, and he probably would’ve joined in under normal circumstances. There was nothing normal about this situation, though, and Peter was plagued by a nagging thought that wouldn’t go away no matter how hard Quill tried to make him feel better.

“Hey, um, Mr. Star-Lord?”

“Whoa, hold up, it’s _just_ Star-Lord, kid,” Quill said. “Don’t… don’t do that ‘mister’ business, that doesn’t work. We’re trying to keep it awesome here.”

“Right, uh, Star-Lord, I mean?” Peter corrected himself. “Can I ask you something?”

“You just did.”

“Um… something else?”

“That _was_ something else, but I’ll give you one more.” Quill gave Peter’s hair a quick ruffle. “Ask away.”

Peter took a deep breath. “Why’d you punch Thanos back on Titan?”

Quill stared at him, smile falling away. “What?”

“It’s just, we had that whole plan,” Peter started, the words pouring out of him now that he’d been given the chance, “and it—it was _working_ , it was going to work, you know? We almost had the gauntlet off, it was just going to be a few more seconds, but… you…”

“I ruined it, right?” Quill asked, his voice suddenly serious. He was staring straight ahead of them as they walked through the woods. “I messed everything up, and now we’re all dead.”

Peter visibly flinched. He was still trying to avoid thinking about that. “Um, that’s not what I meant, actually.”

Quill turned to fix him with a surprised look. “You mean you don’t think this whole thing is all my fault?”

“No, uh, it definitely is,” Peter said. “Sorry, man.”

“Yeah,” Quill sighed.

“I just think it’s more complicated than that,” Peter continued. He twisted his hands together in front of him, fidgeting as he walked along. “Sometimes, you do something because it’s what you want in that moment, and you’re not thinking about what the consequences will be. But you’re still responsible for the bad things that happen because of you. Especially when you weren’t trying to do the right thing.”

His eyes stung as he thought about Ben. There were some actions that could never fully be undone—that you spent the rest of your life living around and thinking about. Peter would never let himself forget his biggest mistakes, and he wouldn’t let himself justify them, either.

Although, he guessed that if there was any upside to dying at all, it was that he’d get to see Ben again and finally say how sorry he was. He hoped it would be soon.

“He said he killed a member of my team.”

Peter looked over to find Quill staring hard at the trees in front of them.

“She’s the love of my life, and also his daughter,” he continued, and Peter felt sick to his stomach again. “I didn’t have to think about it, not really. None of it mattered—not winning the battle, not the trillions of lives we needed to save… I just wanted to hurt him.”

Peter thought about the brief moment where he’d believed that Tony was going to die—the crushing helplessness and regret that he hadn’t been there, that he couldn’t do anything to stop it.

“Yeah,” he mumbled, “I think I can understand that.”

“And now we all have to live with it.” Quill snorted, breaking into a smile again. “Well, not _live_ with it, but, you know.”

“It, uh, still kinda sucks being dead, though,” Peter said, voice cracking at the end.

Quill didn’t comment on it, instead steering Peter toward the edge of the trees. “Eh, it’s not so bad.”

“I guess,” Peter said dubiously.

“Hey, no, none of that whole ‘sulky teenager’ routine,” Quill said, wagging a finger at Peter. “I get enough of that from Groot.”

Peter blinked at him. “Um… I’m literally dead, though. I think maybe that warrants at least a little bit of a bad mood—”

“Nope! No sulking,” Quill said firmly. “Trust me, Junior, you won’t want to be moping when you meet up with the others.”

Focusing on the other heroes perked him up immediately. “Why? Are we almost there?”

“Nope,” Quill said, waiting for Peter’s face to fall before he added, “we already are.”

They emerged from the forest into another field, and Peter felt himself start to buzz with excitement and nervousness at the sight: about half the Avengers and a handful of other heroes that he didn’t recognize, all sitting together in a circle under a big oak tree. The King of Wakanda was sitting with his back against the trunk, addressing the rest of the circle, and Peter didn’t know whether to feel sad or relieved.

“Spider-Man, it is good to see you again,” T’Challa said with a warm smile. “I wish the circumstances were better.”

“Oh, uh, you too, Mr. Panther, Your Highness, um, sir,” Peter stuttered as he sat down between him and Wanda. “I’m Peter, by the way. It’s good to meet you for real.”

“And you, Peter,” T’Challa said, looking amused. “Please call me T’Challa. There is little need for formalities here.”

Peter just nodded, eyes wide. “This is so cool,” he breathed.

“Not to interrupt, but where exactly _is_ here?” Sam Wilson spoke up from his seat on the other side of the circle. “We still haven’t figured that out yet.”

“Not this again,” Quill groaned as he flopped down in the empty spot beside Drax. “Clearly we’re dead. _Clearly_. Right, Groot?”

“I am Groot,” Groot said sulkily.

Mantis gasped, and Quill scowled.

“Hey, watch the tone, buddy,” he scolded. “We may be stuck in an endless field with nothing in it for the rest of eternity, but I can still send you to your room.”

Peter perked up. “You guys have rooms? Is there like, a secret base or a castle or something, because that would be so awe—”

Quill held up a finger to silence him. “ _Metaphorically_ speaking.”

“I am _Groot_.”

This time, Quill gasped, too, and dug an elbow into Drax’s side. “Drax! Did you hear that? He never listens to me—”

“As entertaining as this little domestic squabble isn’t,” Dr. Strange cut in, “why don’t we return to the task at hand?”

“I see no reason to conclude that we have passed on,” T’Challa remarked.

“We _have_ to be dead,” Quill insisted. “Look, it makes perfect sense. Thanos had the murder gauntlet, Thanos wanted to murder us, so now we’re murdered! Bam, QED, problem solved.”

“Peter,” Mantis said gently, “I know you wish this to be true because Gamora is not among us, but you must face—”

“We’re not dead,” Wanda interrupted coolly. She didn’t sound too happy about that, Peter noted. She was staring around the circle with steely eyes, challenging anyone to disagree with her. “We can’t be, or else Vision would be here, too.”

“Uh, do androids or whatever even have immortal souls?” Sam asked dubiously.

“Do you want to find out what happens when you die in this place?” Wanda seethed, fingers already glowing with energy.

“Hey, whoa, no need for any smiting or anything,” Peter said, laughing nervously.

“Well,” said Dr. Strange, eyes narrowing in thought, “it would give us some useful information—”

“No smiting,” Peter said firmly.

“Hear, hear!” cheered Quill.

“And anyway, she has a point,” Peter continued. “I just think there are lots of people, including Vision, who should be here if this was the afterlife, but they aren’t.”

“I take back my ‘hear, hear,’” Quill said sullenly. “How do you know that you just haven’t found them yet? The afterlife is huge! There’s plenty of room for them to be wandering around somewhere.”

“ _This_ is not the afterlife,” T’Challa said decisively.

“I agree with His Majesty,” Dr. Strange put in.

Quill just gave an exaggerated groan. “Come on, there has to be _someone_ who agrees with me! How about you, tall-silent-and-brooding?”

Bucky glared at him. Quill wiggled his eyebrows, and Bucky’s eye twitched.

“I’m not sure if there’s an afterlife,” he said after an appropriately painful silence, “but it definitely wouldn’t look like this.”

“Give me _one_ reason!”

Bucky thought about it for a moment. “I’m here, and not burning in the fires of the damned.”

Quill looked horrified. “Come _on_ , man, what am I even supposed to say to that? Read the room a little.”

Bucky just shrugged. “You asked.”

“We are wasting our time when we could be trying to find a way to leave this place,” Wanda said. “It doesn’t matter what Peter Quill thinks when the rest of us are in agreement. We should be making a plan.”

“Whoa, whoa, wait,” Peter said, eyes wide as he totally ignored Quill’s stuttering protests. “Are you saying, I mean, do you really think we might get out of here?”

“Of course we’ll get out of here,” Drax said forcefully.

Peter felt his heart leap, before Drax continued talking.

“I still have to find Thanos and make him pay for the murders of my wife and daughter. Not even death can stop me. And if we don’t get out, I’ll just wait for Thanos to die, and kill him here. However many times he dies, I will kill him until he stays dead.”

“Is this guy for real?” Sam asked the group at large. “Was he like this before he died, too, or was this whole situation too much for him?”

Mantis blinked and tilted her head. “Drax always talks about revenge like this.”

“Of course he does,” Sam muttered, rubbing a hand across his face. “Well, when we get back to real life, he can have the first swing all by himself.”

“That’s all I’ll need,” Drax said gravely.

“Perhaps we would all do well to learn from Drax’s, ah, dedication,” T’Challa cut in smoothly. “Peter.”

Peter felt the need to scramble to attention, straightening up in his seat. “Yes, your Panther-ness, uh, sir?”

Bucky gave a little snort of laughter, and Peter felt like he might have witnessed a minor miracle.

T’Challa was smiling when he continued. “You believe that we are still alive in some way, do you not?”

Peter thought of his Uncle Ben, and then his parents, who he wasn’t sure he would even recognize. He swallowed, nodding. “Yeah, I—yeah.”

“That is what you must hold onto,” T’Challa told him. “You have good reason to believe in your conclusions. Don’t let go of your hope.”

“And what if we really are dead?” Quill asked, uncharacteristically serious.

Peter flinched a bit, and Quill paused to stage-whisper a very conspicuous, “Sorry, kid.

“But shouldn’t we be facing the possibility that this is it?” he asked loudly, arms sweeping to gesture at the repetitive scenery around them. “We can’t keep hiding behind these excuses forever.”

“I am Groot,” Groot said suddenly, crossing his arms. “I am Groot!”

Quill looked stricken, and Mantis’s antennae quivered in concern.

“Groot is right, Peter,” she said. “ _You_ need to accept the very high chance that Gamora really is dead.”

He shook his head. “That’s not what this is about.”

“Isn’t it, though?”

Everyone turned to look at Wanda, but she just kept staring at Quill. Her expression was sad, tired in a way that didn’t fit with her earlier intensity.

“No, it’s not,” Quill insisted, jaw clenching.

“You are not the only one to know the pain of losing a loved one,” Wanda continued. Her eyes were glassy, and Peter found himself reaching out to put a hand on her arm before he’d even realized it. “Thanos caused suffering wherever he went. Let yourself accept that she’s gone and join the rest of us in dealing with your mistake.”

Peter winced.

Quill was shaking his head. “No, I…”

His voice trailed off, like he couldn’t actually think of anything else to say.

“It is never too late for redemption,” T’Challa said.

“Look, I _know_ it’s my fault,” Quill said miserably. “I’m sorry, okay? But I can’t change what I did. And until I know for sure, I’m not going to give up on her.”

Wanda looked away, casting her eyes to the ground. “You are being selfish.”

“No,” Peter said slowly, “he’s—he’s right.”

Mantis shook her head, looking worried. “Peter is being too stubborn.”

“Well, yeah,” Peter agreed, catching Quill’s eye, “but he needs something to hope for, too.”

“He is not facing the consequences of his actions!” Wanda insisted. “We still have a job to do.”

Peter bit his lip. “I just… I don’t think it matters that much anymore. Whether we’re alive or dead or something else, I mean.”

Sam crossed his arms. “Come again?”

“I only just realized it,” Peter said, running a hand through his hair, “but he really _can’t_ change what happened. None of us can. And that’s just it! We’re here, and that’s how things happened, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Was this supposed to make me feel better?” Quill groaned.

“Unless,” Peter continued, “it was maybe supposed to happen like this?”

“Wait, you…” Sam shook his head slowly. “You think Iron Man is going to fix all this, don’t you?”

Peter felt his face getting red. “Well, I mean—yeah. Mr. Stark and everyone will figure out what to do about this, right?”

“Well, that’s sweet,” Sam said, deflating. “Too bad they probably don’t even know we’re here.”

“We can’t just wait around like that,” Wanda said, shaking her head. “It’s too naïve.”

“I think you should all have a little more faith in the team,” Bucky spoke up suddenly. “There’s nothing naïve about that.”

“I don’t mean we should just give up,” Peter protested, shooting the Winter Soldier a grateful look. “We, um, clearly have plenty of stuff we need to talk about and everything.”

Quill snorted. “Understatement.”

“Just… maybe we can all still believe we’ll get out of here somehow,” Peter said.

“Oh, we’ll be getting out of here,” Dr. Strange said in a bored tone of voice.

Peter blinked. “What?”

“You are certain of this?” T’Challa asked, frowning.

“Very,” Dr. Strange promised.

Quill gaped. “I’m sorry, _what_?”

 “When I looked at the future paths, only one of them ended with us winning.” He pointed vaguely in Peter’s direction. “You know this, you were there.”

Peter spluttered. “Yeah, well, I—”

“This is the only way,” Dr. Strange promised. “I was very thorough. If the rest of the Avengers do what they’re supposed to, everything will be back to normal. Relatively, anyway.”

“And you didn’t think to mention this before now?” Wanda asked,

Dr. Strange tilted his head. “Would that have made you all like each other suddenly?”

“Man’s got a point,” Sam said, shrugging.

“Hey, we all like each other!” Quill protested. “Right, guys?”

“Of course!” Mantis exclaimed, at the same time that Drax said, “No.”

“I am Groot,” Groot said.

“Thanks, buddy,” Quill sighed.

“So,” Peter said hesitantly, “does this mean that everyone really is going to get us out of here?”

“If that’s how you want to think about it—sure,” Dr. Strange said rather unenthusiastically. “Assuming they don’t screw it up somehow, that is.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that, Doctor.”

Everyone turned to the source of the new voice just in time to see Fury striding confidently into the clearing, black coat billowing behind him and Agent Maria Hill hot on his heels.

“You’re confident they’ll get it right?” Dr. Strange asked, eyebrows shooting toward his hairline.

“Hell, no,” Fury said immediately. “They’re almost mathematically guaranteed to fuck it up.”

“We’re confident that there’s someone who _can_ get the job done,” Hill clarified. “Ever heard of Captain Marvel?”

“Sounds about right,” Dr. Strange said.

“I don’t know,” Quill sighed loudly, “it seems to me like all the _best_ heroes are stuck here, wherever this is.”

He winked at Peter, grinning, and Peter could already feel himself grinning back.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said, “King T’Challa is here.”

As Quill yelled in outrage and T’Challa himself laughed beside him, Peter finally felt at ease since the moment back on Titan when he’d started to disintegrate. There was no way to know how or if everything would work out, but he could count on his teammates, and that would always mean something. So he sat back, tuned in for the rest of Nick Fury’s colorful debriefing, and just for now, didn’t worry about tomorrow.

* * *

When Peter finally came back, Tony was right there waiting for him. He barely had time to understand what had happened before the Iron Man suit was phasing away and Tony Stark was sprinting toward him like his life depended on it.

“Peter!”

Before he knew what was happening, Tony was barreling into him with a massive, bone-crushing hug that sent them both tumbling to the ground. A wide grin split Peter’s face as he wrapped his arms around his mentor, shoulders sagging in relief.

“Mr. Stark, you did it!” he laughed. “I knew you’d get everything back to normal, I knew it! You have to tell me how you did it, okay, I want to know _everything_ —”

“God, I never thought I’d be this happy to hear your frankly embarrassing rambling,” Tony breathed, and he sounded so genuinely relieved that Peter didn’t even bother to protest. Tony was still hugging him close to his chest, one hand rubbing soothing circles over the spider insignia on his back. “Are you sure you’re real?”

Peter’s incredulous laughter was muffled by Tony’s shoulder. “Pretty sure, yeah.”

To his surprise, he realized after a moment that his eyes were stinging with tears. Shaking, he tightened his arms around Tony and took a deep breath.

“You good?” Tony asked hoarsely.

“Can we just maybe, um, stay like this for a second?” Peter asked in a rush. “Just until I calm down a little. It’s just been… a lot.”

“I’m not going anywhere, kid,” Tony said softly, voice just as thick as Peter’s.

They stayed like that for another few minutes, Peter hiccoughing and stuttering against Tony’s chest. Eventually, when Peter’s breathing had calmed down to something resembling normal, Tony pulled back from the hug, keeping his hands on Peter’s shoulders. He stared at Peter for a long moment, brown eyes unusually serious. It reminded Peter too much of the last time he’d seen Tony, right before he’d been sucked out of existence, and he could barely keep himself from fidgeting.

“Next time I tell you to go home,” Tony said finally, voice cracking at the end, “ _go home_ , kid.”

Peter blinked. “Uh, well, technically, it wouldn’t have mattered _where_ I was when Thanos did his whole reality warp thing—”

“Alright, I already take back that thing about missing the babbling. You were _dead_ , kid. Just listen to me for once in your life, alright?”

Something in Tony’s expression told Peter that it wasn’t a good time to point out that he actually hadn’t been dead. Kind of. He’d tell him all about it eventually, but for now he’d wait until later.

“I’m actually going to need verbal confirmation on this one,” Tony prompted him, sounding much more like his usual self again. “Will you or will you not _listen_ when I tell you to stand down?”

“Of course, Mr. Stark, I promise, yeah,” Peter rushed to say, stumbling over his words. “That’s—yes. Whatever you say.”

Tony didn’t look very convinced. Still, he just shook his head and slung an arm around Peter’s shoulder, giving him a reassuring squeeze as he guided them both to their feet and toward a waiting spaceship. He kept his gaze locked ahead of them, but he was smiling.

“It’s really good to have you back, kid.”

Peter positively beamed. “Yeah. It’s really good to be back. Like, amazing, actually.”

“Good, because I’m pretty sure May is never letting you out of her sight again,” Tony informed him.

Peter perked up at the mention of his Aunt. “Can we—”

“Already on it, kiddo,” Tony promised as they boarded the ship and he began booting it up. “You just kick back and get some rest, and we’ll be back on Earth before you know it.”

“Thanks,” Peter said as he settled into a seat. “Seriously, Mr. Stark, thank you for everything.”

“If you need anything else, tell me,” Tony said seriously.

Peter hesitated.

Tony narrowed his eyes. “Spit it out, squirt.”

“It’s just,” Peter started, “back at the beginning of all this stuff, when you said that I was, you know, on the Avengers—”

Tony sighed heavily, and Peter tried his best to keep the crestfallen look off his face.

“Yeah, I was serious,” Tony said, and Peter glanced up with wide eyes. “And there’s still a spot for you now, if you want it. We’re going to need all hands on deck pretty soon.”

Peter bit his lip to keep the splitting grin from his face. “ _Thank you_ , Mr. Stark. I won’t let you down, I promise.”

Tony looked at him for another moment before he smiled, too. “I never doubted it for a second.”


End file.
